Speed and the O.J. Simpson Chase, 20 Years Later

The bizarre similarities and what they mean

On June 10, 1994, twenty years ago today, the blockbuster movie Speed was released in theaters. Keanu Reeves stars as LAPD officer Jack Traven, who early in the film diffuses a bomb in an elevator shaft, which was planted by nutjob former police bomb squad officer Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper). The real story doesn't begin until about 30 minutes in, when Payne, via payphone, calls Traven and tells him he rigged a public bus with a bomb and when the bus hits 50 mph the bomb arms itself. Panicked, Traven rushes to his car and guns down an LA freeway to thwart Payne's evil plans and prevent the bus from hitting the 50 mph — which he fails in doing, though he does eventually save the bus from exploding. The scene is riveting, and exactly what you'd expect from an action film: thrills and spills, a quintessential car chase, and Reeves himself leaping from a Jaguar onto the bus. Exactly one week after Speed came out and became a huge hit, another LA chase occurred — except this time it wasn't a movie.

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Former NFL star-turned-actor O.J. Simpson was accused of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. Instead of turning himself in, on June 17, 1994, Simpson boarded his white Ford Bronco, along with fellow former NFL player Al Cowlings, and the two began a slow-speed chase from Orange County to Simpson's home in LA suburb Brentwood. Over 95 million people watched the chase live on TV, not knowing whether Simpson, who was thought to be suicidal, would take the gun he had brought with him and end it all on live TV.

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Even though Speed had been filmed at the end of 1993, the parallels between the film and the real-life chase are uncanny. When Traven jumps in his car and rushes to the scene, his car happens to be... wait for it... a Ford Bronco. His Bronco isn't white — more like a gray vintage model from the late '60s/early '70s — but both the O.J. chase and Reeves's high-speed chase involve similar aerial shots of a Bronco careening down a Los Angeles freeway in midday. Both the Simpson and Speed chases occur over the course of a few hours. Death looms in Speed (everyone on the bus thinks they're going to die) as with Simpson, who's the villain in his story, an alleged murderer on the loose — just like Payne.

Speaking of Payne, another prescient moment in Speed that matches the O.J. foofaraw is when Payne utters something about how "interactive TV is the wave of the future." He makes this remark after blowing up one of the hostages who tries to get off the bus. Payne's watching the media frenzy on TV, and the news gets word of the casualty and reports it on air. Payne has the ability to participate in events and change the outcome, which is the definition of interactive TV, or ITV. Viewers of the Simpson chase felt like they were participating, and the ensuing murder trial shepherded in an era of reality TV, which bred shows like American Idol and Big Brother. Those shows involve the home viewer's participation to vote for the best singer or vote a contestant off the show, respectively. The advent of TiVo, kids' programs catered to tablets, DVR, and on-demand channels also fall under the umbrella of ITV, imploring the viewer to engage directly with the media.

In 1994 we didn't quite have social media yet, but imagine if we had. Both the O.J. chase and the Speed bus would've had drastically different outcomes. All of those people along the freeway cheering on Simpson would've been posting photos to Instagram with their phones, live-tweeting the event. Hell, maybe O.J. himself would've been tweeting confessions. Maybe things would've turned out differently for him, just like the hostages on the bus, who also would've been tweeting real-time updates. The hostages would've been instructed not to tweet certain things, but there's always someone who's going to slip up. In the actual movie, the only way the hostages get off the bus is when they realize Payne implemented a surveillance system in the bus so he could watch them, then they film a video and loop it long enough to escape. What if the ending had been different for O.J.? What would participant-viewers in the chase have told him in their tweets? Would interactive media have cajoled him to change his fate? Maybe he and Cowlings would've pulled a Thelma and Louise and driven off Mulholland Drive to their demise. We'll never know.

Speed is one of those action films everyone has seen at some point, but most of us don't watch it annually or even every decade. It's a quotable, buried treasure of a film that went on to influence innumerable other high-concept films, just as the O.J. chase went on influence the reality TV of today. It may be a stretch to say Speed predicted the O.J. chase — had O.J. seen the film and been influenced by it? — because art imitates life, and vice versa, all the time. (Or was it the Illuminati pulling the strings all along?) Whatever feelings the O.J. chase and Speed conjure today, both unequivocally contributed mordant views on pop culture and generated ripples throughout Hollywood and the rest of the world. Most importantly, they gave us exhilarating car chases in which, for once, the conclusion wasn't totally predictable.